Friday, December 18, 2015

An open letter to Mr. Arvind Kejriwal

Dear Arvind,

It was really surprising if not shocking to see you
shouting angry slurs at BJP and Mr. Modi on national TV and also on Twitter. I
really thought that you learned your lesson from your horrible outburst against
Mr. Prashant Bhushan and Mr. Yogendra Yadav which was revealed immediately
after your party's spectacular victory in Delhi assembly elections. We all can
disagree with others or even can have serious difference of opinion on various
matters or criticize each other very strongly without being abusive towards
each other. I was under impression that may be finally after that mistake you
learned to control your anger, at least in public. But it seems that lesson is
long forgotten and you are back with your 'angry young man' avatar that has
very little regard for choice of words while expressing his anger. While I
totally agree that you have complete freedom to say whatever you want, after
all right of freedom of expression comes with right to offend, but I never
imagined that you will take it to the extent that it will sound like abuse.
Actually frankly speaking my love affair with AAP ended long back, immediately
after you decided to resign after 45 days of your brief tenure as Delhi CM. I
should accept that I was attracted to your political party because of presence
of wide variety of people from different backgrounds who doesn't necessarily
subscribe to single ideology. It was interesting mix and generated some hope in
people like me that may be people with different set of ideas also can come
together and create something unique which can challenge traditional norms of
Indian politics and frankly you guys managed to do that but that phenomena was
very short lived. I still agree that your party is somewhat different than
all other political parties in India but that difference is very minute and the
gap is narrowing day by day but yes, still it is somewhat different.

Now, coming back to this particular incident, I agree that
Mr. Modi or central NDA government misused power in their hand, I also agree
that CBI was in past and still today is used as a tool to settle political
scores or strike political deals but didn't you already know all this? Didn't
you voluntarily signed up for this job and willingly entered murky arena of
Indian politics after knowing all these facts? Or somehow in your wildest
dreams you believed that these things won't happen with you and your
government? So assuming that even if Mr. Modi or BJP showed their cowardliness
and vengeance why you didn't show your bravery and sensible nature by facing
that inquiry or raid like any common citizen of India? Why you think that your
office is so special that CBI needs to take your permission to raid it if it
feels necessary to raid it? If according to you Mr. Modi is a coward or a
psychopath then who are you? A brave CM who is crying foul just for a single
raid conducted on his office by using such a foul language? Or is it the case
that as a CM of Delhi you expect to be treated differently that any other
citizen of India? I still remember that you and your party as well as most
leaders of other political parties saying on multiple occasions that you all
are servants of common people of India, you all claim to be against that VIP
culture. But it seems this rhetoric is only true until you guys win the
election and get the power, once you are in government then you all become
those VIPs, expect some special treatment and start behaving like a privileged
entity. I think you know this but in case you forgot let me remind you that
many common people in India go through some of these ordeals of search, raids
and arrests everyday without creating any fuss. Many of them go through this as
a consequences of their criminal acts but believe me many are put through this
for no fault of theirs but they all go through this and believe that system
will do justice with them. They believe in same system of which you are also a
part now. They don't ask for any special treatment so what you have to say now
about no VIP culture and everyone should be treated in same way? I know, that
now you or your supporters will argue that then why X CM's office was not
raided or why Y scam was not investigated, I agree that there is often
selective investigations and political vendetta in some cases. People are
raising questions about these things and these things should be questioned in
proper way. But if there are some allegations against one of officers in your
office then why not to investigate him? Why to put condition that first
investigate X and Y and then come to me or my staff? What happened to claim
that we will not tolerate any corruption or shelter any corrupt officer slogan,
was it just achunavi jumla,a gimmick to win election,
just like your esteemed opponents use many of them in every election? If
it was then at least let people know about it, so they stop wondering about
such type of behavior.

If you expected that nothing of this sort will happen to
you or your political opponents won't play any dirty games with you or they
will deal with you using kid gloves or politics will change overnight then I
must say that I am amazed by your naiveness. Similar things have happened in
past and I am sure they will happen in future also but it is you who promised
to bring the change of culture but it seems that now you are trying really hard
to fit right into that same culture which you opposed as an activist. Your
choice of words was not only wrong but I am sure it was disheartening for many
of your supporters to hear these things coming out from you. Actually it puts
you in same line of people who called you traitor, Pakistani agent,bhagoda,naxaland what not. I am sure you must be
enjoying their company as you really tried very hard to be part of that group.
Those people also used abusive language and displayed very low level of
personal vendetta and what you did was no different. I would not have bothered
to write this mail few months back but recently I thought your government was
back on track as you guys were really doing some good work, initiating
discussions about relevant topics like pollution and air quality of Indian
cities but then this happened. It is like going 5 steps forward and 10 steps
backward.

I don't want to make my letter too long and too preachy. I
am also not nhere to tell you what to do and what not to do, I am sure you know
this better than me. I just raised few questions and I hope you bother to think
about them and introspect a little. Let me end by citing a very relevant
example for you, I am sure you know the name of Sachin Tendulkar. This man is
considered as a great cricketer not just for number of records he broke or runs
he scored but also for his temperament, consistency, sincerity and on field
behavior. There are equally great players as far as statistics or records are
concerned from his era or eras before and after him, many of them are very
aggressive not only while playing cricket but while dealing with other players
on field and some of them are even known to be extremely abusive during their
on field behavior. Sachin is different from all those because he never engaged
in on field verbal spats, it is not that he was not abused or people never
tried to intimidate him or he was not targeted, opponents from all teams tried
all sort of tactics but this man answered all that not with his mouth but with
his bat by scoring runs. His performance answered those insults thrown at him,
no doubt that he needed to produce very high quality performance consistently
to deal with on ground sledging and this is one of the reasons why I consider
him as a great cricketer. I hope this example inspires you to do something
different from now onward. Because it is of no use just to claim that you are
different, you also need to show that in your behavior.